Tuesday, January 31, 2012

How To Make Hand Soap {a money saving tutorial}

053

Our family manages to go through a lot of hand soap. 
 I’ve tried switching to using bar soap,
 but the kids turn each bar into a sculpture,
 and much of that ends up down the drain or in the trash. 
 I found this recipe  for making your own hand soap. 
It cost me about $0.70, and 15 minutes to make this large refill sized bottle. 
Here’s how to do it:

045

Shred the bar of soap using a cheese grater.

046

You will need 1 cup of the soap flakes. 
The bar of soap I had ended up being about 1.5 cups. 
 Save the flakes you do not use for the next batch, in a Ziploc bag.

048

Combine 10 cups of water, 1 cup of soap flakes,
 and 1 teaspoon of glycerin in a large pot. 
Heat on medium high heat just until the soap flakes have melted,
 about 4-5 minutes or so. 
Allow the mixture to cool, stirring occasionally. 
 Using a funnel, pour the soap into a bottle. 
You can label it if you like. 

051

My kids are loving this soap! 
 They think it is neat that I made it too. 
The original tutorial that I found said that the better quality of soap you use,
the better the hand soap will turn out. 
 Our favorite bar soap is Yardley.
 The smell is mild, and it doesn’t dry out your hands.

056

Give it a try and let me know how it went! 
 Leave a comment, especially if you tried another type of soap. 
 I would love to hear from you!

Monday, January 30, 2012

Mommy and Me

Mommy and Me

Isaac snapped a photo of of the two of us snuggled on the sofa.
Just after he took it, she fell asleep laying on me,
tired from being up the night before with the tummy bug.
That has rarely happened before.
I'm so glad I have a picture to remember it by!

Linking up with Working on a Project for her photo challenge: Focus on Mom.


 

Sunday, January 29, 2012

Tot School - 25.5 Months

Poor baby had a rough couple of weeks, so school has been hit or miss. 
 It did seem to help distract her when she wasn’t feeling well though.

027

She did a little from our Monster Tot Pack
 This is size sorting biggest to smallest. 
 She points to them and assigns a family name to each…
Daddy, Isaac, Nate, Elaina, and Olivia.

028

She placed the shapes on top of the monsters head,
 and we practiced saying the colors and names of the shapes.

033

She requested to do a lot of coloring with the dry erase markers….

040

I had these mice out for an activity with Elaina and she wanted to play with them. 
We lined them up on the magnet board and counted them. 
 She had the most fun though, just pouring them in and out of their container!

072

We went through lots of books, as usual. 
 She is loving this one now, B is for Bear.

074


107

I had her put straws into an old grated cheese container. 
This occupied her for a very long time and she asked to do it often this week.

109

She is really starting to enjoy playing with Play-doh…

111

And mashed it into the letter N Play-doh page.

124

She did the letter N is for Nest magnet page with our pom pom magnets.

017

And did some lacing…

021

I got out the teddy bears again, and this time a mini ice-cube tray for her to place them into.

035



038


046

I just recently found these Three Bear Family Pattern and Sequencing Cards at the thrift store for $1. 
She is too young for them but she enjoyed lining them up anyway.

051


054


055

She got to wear rollers in her hair for the first time this week. 
 I was completely amazed that she slept in them all night. 
 Her hair is just a little too short for these curls,
but it sure looked cute up in a curly pony tail the next day!

063

This day she was really sick, but wanted to do school so bad just like her sister. 
She sat and colored quietly for a long time.

111


112

 Despite not feeling well, she still smiled a lot! 
 I am so praying that our family finds health next week!

060


062

Saturday, January 28, 2012

Moments to Remember {Spelling Beez}


Spelling Beez

We had a hard week. 
 Again. 
We spent a lot of days in our jammies,
 did very little school work,
 and mostly just camped out in front of the t.v. 
I did manage to set out a few “educational” games for those who felt up to it. 
 I came down from rocking the baby to find these two playing
our game of Spelling Beez
 Loving this moment of Isaac and Elaina taking the initiative to stay occupied
 when their tired, wore out momma was starting to get a little cranky....
So proud of you guys!


Friday, January 27, 2012

fun friday

I love to reward my kids, after a great week of school, with “Fun Friday”. 
We usually try to do all of our schooling in 4 days a week. 
If everyone has been cooperating, and completed their work with a cheerful heart,
 then Friday becomes our fun school! 
 We do lots of art projects, crafts, science experiments, learning games,
educational movies, computer games, and usually a fun snack. 
Sometimes we go on a field trip, or invite our friends over to join us!

fun friday

On the grid (from left to right):
1.  Maddie.  She had the prettiest Rainbow Fish!
2.  Isaac who was by far the messiest.
3.  Nate and Ben who never stopped laughing that day.
4.  Elaina carefully filling in her fish.
5.  Ben.
6.  Elaina and Olivia playing with baby Samantha. 
7.  Gracie {with the cutest cheese smile!} 
8.  Nate counting his play money. 
9.  Baby Samantha, catching some Zzzzzz….

Now that's a lot of kids.  Count them.  There are 8!

I read them The Rainbow Fish and the kids helped tell the story with our cute felt board set.  Then they made their own Rainbow Fish via crayon resist and water colors.  And for some fish bling we embossed some silver scales on top.  The kids played Hyperdash outside, and then Sports Market Game for some money counting practice.  We made homemade pizza.  The kids gobbled it up (next time making two!)  And enjoyed some delish funfetti cupcakes.

So much fun!

Already planning the next one…

Posh Princess Preschool - Letter N



N is for: Nest, Numbers, Noah’s Ark

100

We used the handy dandy Word Whammer.
N says nnnnn….

101

And learned how to write the letter Nn with this worksheet...

103


105

Made a letter N on our Play-doh page,
and cut out a letter N with these cookie cutters...

112

N for Nose coloring sheet…

114

Letter N search…

115

And smallest object page…

118

She is working through this fun set from
 Lakeshore Learning called Sound Sort
 She is slowly grasping the difference
 between beginning and ending sounds.

120

We are still using this set of Follow the Dots Stamps.
She loves to write over them when she is done stamping.

123


125


126

Letter N for nest magnet page from Making Learning Fun.
127


130

She did this number puzzle from Melissa and Doug...
096

I got out our magnetic numbers and put them into a basket
 for her to “fish” with her magnetic fishing pole.
101

Then she lined them up in order…
somehow we were missing the 4…
and the 9....
103

We read through the Noah’s Ark story in the bible,
 and watched an old VHS movie we had about Noah’s Ark too. 
Then she and Isaac worked on this Noah’s Ark puzzle.
104

And she painted a few Noah’s Ark pictures…
108

109


091

We still do a lot of review each week, over the letters she has already learned. 
This week I took out our N is for Nature Blocks.
 As she took one from the basket, she wrote the letter down
 and drew pictures to go with each letter. 
She loves to write and to draw, and she did this activity for over half an hour.
088


092

My sweet momma gave Elaina some new rollers for her hair,
and we had to try them out! 
Even The Baby got in on the fun!
060

I caught them afterwards playing with Barbies. 
Ok so I have to admit, this was soooo sweet to me! 
My mom could tell you that I was often like this,
 rollers in my hair, Saturday night before church. 
And oh, how I loved to play with my Barbies!

062


063


064

I love this one of Elaina singing…

072073




















And then in the morning, with her cute curls!

Elaina

Love you so much sweetie!

Linking up with Preschool Corner.